


A heap of broken images, where the sun beats

by mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrinneyFriday/pseuds/mygalfriday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor has lost someone important, but Clara never asks who, and with time, he tells her all on his own, without ever saying a word.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A heap of broken images, where the sun beats

**Author's Note:**

> Story title from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.

She doesn’t notice at first, too caught up in new people and planets, soul-eating gods and wi-fi monsters, but eventually, after spending enough time with the Doctor, she starts to notice things – things that had always been in the peripheral before but she’d never really given her full attention. Like the pained look on his face whenever he puts on his reading glasses, or the way he sometimes stares at his physic paper as if waiting for a message that never comes.

 

He never talks about it but sometimes the ache in his voice and the hunch of his shoulders is so familiar it makes her heart hurt. It speaks of deeply seated grief and the loss of something precious. It’s the same way her father was for a long time after her mother’s death, the way he still is sometimes, on a bad day. The Doctor has lost someone important, but Clara never asks who, and with time, he tells her all on his own, without ever saying a word.

 

He promises to take her to Vegas and she spends half an hour in the TARDIS wardrobe trying to find shoes to match her dress, absolutely sure that the ship is hiding everything but the hideously ugly ones on purpose. Finally, she sinks down in the middle of the wardrobe with a sigh and looks around the room. “Come on,” she whinges. “Just one pair that isn’t an eyesore.”

 

The TARDIS makes a disgruntled noise.

 

Clara huffs. “Please? I don’t even care if they match anymore. Just give me something that isn’t _neon_.”

 

No response, not even a negative one.

 

She sighs, resigned to her fate of ugly footwear as she glances around the room. It’s then that she spots them – a gorgeous pair of red high heels that definitely hadn’t been there before. Gasping, Clara scrambles to her feet and runs to the shoes before they disappear like a mirage. She snatches them up reverently and slips them on, half expecting the TARDIS to have given her the wrong size on purpose.

 

Delighted to find they fit perfectly, she stands up straight and does a little dance in them. She feels strangely daring in these heels – like she could conquer the universe wearing them. Scooping up her handbag, she skips out of the room humming, darting back inside to utter a self-conscious _thank you_ to an empty room.

 

Approaching the control room, where the Doctor waits impatiently, she totters into view, flicking her hair over her shoulder playfully. “What do you think? Is Vegas ready for me?” He grins, taking her hand and twirling her for inspection. “ _And_ I’m almost as tall as you in these things!”

 

The moment his eyes drop to her shoes, she knows something is wrong. He freezes, face suddenly white, as though he’s seen a ghost. Clara frowns. “Doctor?”

 

He swallows, gaze still fixed on her shoes. “Where did you get those?”

 

“The TARDIS wardrobe,” she says, offering him a smile she hopes is bright enough to snap him out of his daze. “I think she’s starting to warm up to me.”

 

He shakes his head, whirling from her to glare at the time rotor. “This is not a game,” he hisses, striding to the console and gripping the edge of it like a lifeline. “Stop it.”

 

She frowns, edging cautiously to his side. “What’s going on?”

 

“Nothing.” He straightens with a bright smile oddly devoid of warmth. “The TARDIS was just having a bit of fun with you. The wardrobe’ll have something you like now, promise.”

 

“But I like these,” she says.

 

“Nonsense, they don’t go with your dress at all.”

 

He tries to prod her back the way she’d come but Clara doesn’t move, eyes narrowing. “You don’t want me wearing these shoes.”

 

His smile wavers. “No.”

 

“Why?”

 

“They’re…” He swallows hard, tugging anxiously at his bowtie. “Special.”

 

It’s not really an answer but the look on his face keeps her from pressing the issue. Instead, she bends to slip out of the heels, sinking a few inches and suddenly feeling a little less badass. With a regretful sigh, she pushes them into the Doctor’s hands and doesn’t miss the tender, almost protective way he holds them to his chest.

 

“Back in a flash,” she says, and dashes off to the wardrobe again. She stops in the doorway and stares. In place of all the terrible shoes from before, there’s only one pair now – strappy silver heels that match her dress perfectly. Clara snatches them up and mutters to the room at large, “That wasn’t very nice.”

 

The TARDIS hums and Clara gets the distinct impression the ship is trying to tell her something. When she returns to the control room, the Doctor is waiting for her and those dazzling red heels are nowhere to be seen. He never mentions them again and Clara never asks.

 

-

 

One afternoon, when he picks her up and asks her where she’d like to go today, she has her answer ready for once and says with a grin, “I want to see the pyramids when they were new.”

 

Instantly, his face falls, the excitement replaced with such raw grief that the transition is startling. Turning from her quickly, he fiddles with the console aimlessly and says, “Egypt? That dusty old place?” He scoffs. “I thought you wanted to see something _awesome_ , Clara Oswald? How about Barcelona?”

 

A little insulted – the pyramids _are_ awesome, thanks very much – she frowns. “What’s so special about Barcelona?”

 

“Not the city, the planet,” he says, still avoiding her gaze, “they have dogs with no noses.”

 

She wrinkles her nose. “That sounds disturbing. Ooh, what about old New York? You could dress like a gangster and I could wear a flapper dress!”

 

He stiffens, his grip on what he tends to call the “wibbley wobbley” lever suddenly white-knuckled. “Can’t,” he says quietly. “I’ve been… banned, as it were.”

 

She lifts an eyebrow, intrigued. “You can be banned from an entire era?”

 

“Unfortunately, yes.”

 

She crosses her arms over her chest, entirely sure he isn’t telling her something. “Well, I’m out of ideas – you pick. And a list of places that are off limits taped to the console wouldn’t go amiss, yeah?”

 

A little rattled, he seems to have forgotten her protest about Barcelona and lands them there anyway, but she soon forgets all about her misgivings, crouching down in front of one of the strange creatures masquerading as a dog and laughing as she scratches under its chin. “Well, hello sweetie,” she coos.

 

Next to her, the Doctor starts and glances up, something bright and painful flaring in his eyes before it dims and fades when his gaze lands on her.

 

Clara lets the dog lick her hand and frowns up at him. “You alright Doctor?”

 

“Who, me?” He nods, looking shaken. “I’m always alright.”

 

The Doctor has never mentioned Rule One but somehow, Clara knows anyway.

 

-

 

When the Doctor’s busy tinkering with the wires beneath the console, muttering irritably to himself, Clara takes the opportunity to slip away and go exploring. The Doctor has mentioned a squash court and a library with a swimming pool but has yet to actually show her any of it. She sneaks out of the control room while the Doctor is still mumbling under his breath and finds herself in an unfamiliar hallway, as if the TARDIS has been switching things about again.

 

Not quite trusting this ship that she is sure is laughing at her more often than not, Clara walks slowly, anticipating all manner of unpleasant surprises. The first door she comes across is locked and so are the rest of them when she tries them. She jiggles the handles, shoves with her shoulder, and tries to pick the locks with a bobby pin, but nothing works. She’s just about to give up and slink back to the control room like a naughty child who couldn’t reach the biscuit jar when the last door at the end of the hall catches her eye.

 

It’s a dark mahogany wood, heavy-looking and slightly ajar, warm light from within spilling invitingly out into the hallway. Clara approaches cautiously, fully expecting the door to be slammed in her face the moment she reaches it. She reaches out a hand and grasps the doorknob tightly, just in case, yanking. It opens the rest of the way with no resistance and Clara beams triumphantly, stumbling into the room before the ship changes its mind.

 

She shuts the door behind her and turns to face the room, peering around. There’s a large, luxurious bed in the middle of the room, a dresser, a desk, a woman’s vanity – everything in rich shades of gold and brown. She isn’t quite sure what she’d been expecting behind the door but a bedroom hadn’t been it.

 

A bit disappointed, she begins to poke around, hoping to find something to make her getaway worthwhile. She decides to start at one end and work her way around. The room is fairly large with opulent, antique sconces on the walls, bathing everything in warm light and she can’t help but wonder who had slept in here.

 

She inspects the sprawling desk in one corner first, a typewriter in the middle of it and papers scattered around it, notes about a library and disappearances scrawled across the pages. The drawers to the desk are locked and equally impervious to her bobby pin, all except for the top drawer, which is filled with strange tools – little brushes and picks all covered in a thin layer of dirt.

 

Shutting the drawer, she moves on to the chaise, where a shimmering green dress has been carefully laid out. On top of it is a top hat and Clara picks it up, perching it atop her head at a jaunty angle as she inspects the closet. There are several tweed jackets hanging in there, an array of dresses and jodhpurs, high heels and boots, scarves and a fez.

 

The bed has been hastily made and on top of one of the pillows, like a prized jewel upon a pedestal, sits a blue book. Clara reaches out a hand to touch it, stroking the patterned cover hesitantly. It feels sacred and beloved, and touching it feels like a monumental invasion of privacy. She pulls her hand away, fingers tingling.

 

The vanity contains a wealth of interesting but nonsensical information – a weird wrist strap, a tube of lipstick, a half empty bottle of expensive perfume, and a paperweight, but by far the most interesting is the vanity mirror itself. Scrawled in red lipstick on the glass are the words _see you soon sweetie_ followed by a lipstick kiss. Something heavy – possibly the paperweight – had been hurled at the mirror, cracking it beyond repair, and bits of shattered glass litter the vanity table.

 

There’s something sticking out of the frame of what’s left of the mirror and Clara extracts it with careful fingers. It’s a photograph – a young man with a strong nose and a young woman with vibrant ginger hair posing by the shore, and next to them, not looking at the camera but at each other, are the Doctor and a beautiful woman with a riot of wild blonde curls. They’re beaming at each other and Clara hasn’t seen two people so utterly besotted with one another since her mum and dad.

 

The Doctor looks… happy. She’s never seen him smile like that, a smile without shadows of grief clinging to its edges. Hoping for names, she turns the picture over and sees written in a feminine hand: _Mum, Dad, my sweetie and me. Greece, 1962_.

 

Her chest aches with the knowledge that these people were his family. The Doctor had a family and he lost them. Everything about the strange man she travels with suddenly makes a little more sense. Grateful for the unexpected insight, she looks around the room and whispers, “Thank you.”

 

For some reason, the hum of the TARDIS feels a little warmer now.

 

Brushing her fingers over the image of the curly-haired woman pressed into the Doctor’s side, she knows somehow that this woman is the owner of the fabulous shoes and the reason the Doctor can’t stomach the thought of visiting Egypt, the reason his smile never quite reaches his eyes, the way it does in the photograph. “Blimey,” she mutters, studying the woman carefully. “You really did a number on him, love.”

 

“Clara?” She jumps guiltily, whirling and expecting to find the Doctor standing in the doorway. There’s no one there and she sags gratefully against the vanity behind her. “Fixed that broken circuit – was thinking about celebrating with milkshakes in 1950. Clara, where are you?”

 

“Coming!” She shouts. “But go ahead, I want a chocolate malt!”

 

Turning quickly, she tucks the photograph back into the mirror’s frame and moves the top hat from her head back to the dress on the chaise. She turns out the lights and shuts the door quietly on her way out, leaving the room exactly as she’d found it – a shrine to an infinity of lost days.


End file.
